Some Quiet Place

by Kelsey Sutton

  “Damn it,” the woman says through her teeth. “I thought the illusion had faded enough that … ” She stops mid-sentence, and I immediately see why. Before our very eyes, the wound in Fear’s stomach is folding, drying, closing, until the skin is smooth and unblemished. My throat clogs with more questions, but instead of voicing them, I kneel so I’m right by Fear’s head. With trembling fingers, I smooth his hair back, and it occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve actually touched it in this life. It’s just as silky as I imagined it would be.

  The woman watches for a moment. Then she rests her own hand on my shoulder. “He’ll be fine,” she tells me. “I’ll take you back, if you want. Or I could make up a bed for you here.”

  “No,” I respond instantly. “I don’t want to stay here.” There’s really nothing to go back to, but I find myself leaving Fear’s side and following the woman back to the car. The door hinges shriek as we leave, and clouds of white swirl through the air with each exhale. The woman doesn’t ask any questions as we get back into the car—which she probably stole, now that I think about it, since she has no need for one when I’m not around.

  The night whizzes past once again, less urgent this time. Pressing my forehead to the glass, I close my eyes and try not to think about Fear. But it’s impossible not to. I know why I don’t want to be there when he wakes up; I can’t get those images of him and Rebecca out of my head. Knowing that he once loved me—someone that I destroyed—I can’t face him. I keep picturing those moments of passion, the way Rebecca and Fear touched. Gone. Fear’s been wandering the earth in pain just as long as I have. He found Elizabeth and loved again. And again, I ripped that love away from him. His pain, his struggles, his torment. All my fault. I can’t pinpoint the sensation that makes my chest hurt … or maybe I’m not willing to explore it. Not right now.

  Once again the woman and I are silent in the car. The white lines on the road shoot by. It isn’t until we’re back in Tim’s driveway, back at the house that isn’t really mine, that she speaks. The engine idles as she shifts gears again, and the leather seat creaks when she twists to face me.

  “I want to tell you something.” She hesitates, and stillness fills the space between us. “About the illusion,” she asserts.

  I angle toward her, too. “Okay.”

  The woman taps her knee with her finger. “When it breaks … it’s going to hurt. A lot. Not just physically.”

  “Well.” I take this in. “Thank you for letting—”

  “That’s not what I want to tell you,” she snaps. “I should have told you this the day you asked me to do the illusion … I just want you to know that you’re strong. Okay? You didn’t need the illusion to overcome w-what you’d g-gone through.” She clenches the steering wheel at this, and I know she’s struggling to speak past the power that not only affects me but both of us. She breathes deeply, then continues. “I only did it because we needed to get Nightmare off your trail. And it did, for years. So I don’t regret doing it. But you didn’t need the illusion to survive … to survive what you did. Do you understand me?” The power stops her from giving me details, and there’s still a portion of the illusion standing, so I don’t understand, not completely. But I nod. The woman nods, as well. “Good,” she says. “Good night.”

  That’s my cue to go. Her polite way of telling me to get out. She’s never been polite before, so I quickly comply. The house is dark, but Charles’s car is in the driveway, so I know he’s home.

  Preparing myself for the scene ahead, I watch the woman drive away into the night, back to Fear. And I have a feeling that when I see her again, things are going to be very, very different.

  Even though it felt like a decade, I was only in the woods for two days. My not-brother yelled at me when I got home, and it wasn’t horrible for his first lecture. When he was done, his face was as red as Tim’s. But the menace was missing. Instead of looking furious, he just looked … weary. He’d returned to this house for me, altered his life for me, and this is how I repaid him. But the guilt I should have felt was absent, as the illusion taunted me with its resoluteness.

  Three more days have gone by. I can’t bring myself to go back to school. My thoughts are consumed by my real family and the few glimpses of my old life that I’ve been given. No, that I’ve fought for. Why? Why fight for something I tried so hard to forget? That was what I was doing, throughout all of this. Fighting. Looking for the truth. Seeking to find a place where I belonged. In this way, I’m so human. I’ve observed it many times, thought it on countless occasions: give a person what they want, and it turns out it’s not what they wanted after all.

  As the hours pass, I lie in the bed I’ve slept in for thirteen years. It feels strange now. Like I’m burying myself in someone else’s sheets. They smell like me, Sarah picked them out for me, but the ghost of what should have been fills this room like a choking perfume. The mural looms closer and closer and Landon’s prone form swallows my attention whole, no matter how much I try to concentrate on something else.

  Charles doesn’t hover. No matter how much he’s changed, he was never good at that kind of thing. He loses himself in the car he’s invested so much hope in, and continues his shifts at Fowler’s. I’ve seen him poring over bills, though, Worry pressing close. I really didn’t give Charles enough credit over the years—he’s just as extraordinary as Maggie.

  Maggie.

  I try not to think about her. The memory of her pallid face causes an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of my stomach. Every time my guard slips and she slides past, one word pounds at the inside of my skill: Should. I should have tried breaking the illusion sooner. I should have been able to lay my hands on her and heal her, as I had with Fear. I should have been more for her. If I hadn’t been so weak, so desperate to cling to logic and escape the past, her death could have been prevented.

  It’s a mantra: Don’t think about her.

  Finally, though, one thing drags me from that bed, from that room, from the pieces that are me and someone else. And that thing is Joshua Hayes. Charles must have told him I’m back, because he calls the house relentlessly. Whenever Charles tiptoes through the doorway—as if disturbing me will set off some sort of grenade—I pretend to be asleep. But Joshua is there, lodged in my head. Past all the questions and torment about Landon, our mother, what I am, why Fear hasn’t come to see me now that he’s better, Joshua is there. Waiting. I saw you. The words replay over and over with all the tenacity of a blaring radio. I pay my dues, and I owe him. He was nothing but kind to me. The only problem is that he wants. Wants Elizabeth, who’s fragmented and fading. Wants a future, which I can no longer imagine. Wants more, which I just can’t give. Because so much else stands in the way, and it isn’t just the illusion.

  So, as I shower and dress for battle, the decision is easy: I’m going to lie. I feel nothing, for him or for anyone. Once he believes me, sees that I’m a monster, he’ll let me go. Quite easily, I imagine.

  My face void of all expression, I head outside. My truck is parked by the barn. Charles must have had it towed back from wherever Nightmare abandoned it.

  As it always does, the thought of the Element sends a jarring shiver down my spine. But Fear doesn’t come—I can’t help but notice. No, I won’t let myself wonder. I’m becoming an expert at avoidance, and there’s no reason to abandon the skill now.

  I climb into the truck, find the keys on the dashboard, and go.

  I haven’t been to the Hayes’ farm since Joshua’s mom died. Everything looks like it’s falling into disrepair. The roof on the house is sagging, and whatever color paint it had is long gone. The fence alongside me is missing sections and the driveway is full of potholes. And the crops … the beans aren’t right. I can tell, even when looking at the field from yards away. They should have been harvested by now. The plants are yellow, half-withered, low to the ground. Joshua wasn’t exaggerating when he voiced concern; this place is slipping away.

  Even when the sound of my
truck rumbles through the air, no one emerges from the house or the fields. Killing the engine, I get out and wander.

  I’m not surprised to find Joshua in his barn. Like me, he seems to takes solace in the quiet there. He’s shoveling manure out of a stall and into a wheelbarrow, the muscles in his arms standing out as he works quickly, intent only on this. I watch from the doorway. I wait. It doesn’t take him long to notice me.

  He stares like I’m a mirage. Disbelief stands beside him—the sight of the Emotion confirms that Nightmare is dead, and I feel the faintest sense of relief. Disbelief nods in greeting; he’s a tall, skinny being with pinched lips and a skeptical light in his eyes.

  “Elizabeth?” Joshua says in a whisper. When I just stand there, shifting from foot to foot, his expression breaks into a smile, his relief so evident it causes a twinge in my chest. So many Emotions. I think of how peaceful it is for those without the ability to see it all.

  Then, as quickly as he was happy to see me, Joshua becomes furious. “Where the hell have you been?” he shouts, dropping his shovel. Two quick steps, and then he reaches out and shakes me. “Why haven’t you called me back? You were gone for, like, two days! Charles went out of his mind! And then when we found your truck abandoned on the side of the road, we thought you ran away or had even been kidnapped. The sheriff—”

  “I’m sorry,” I say tonelessly. “I’m fine. I only came back to tell you goodbye.”

  Joshua’s arms drop to his sides like I’m diseased. “What?” he says hoarsely.

  I just shrug, as if I don’t care. Wrong move. Joshua clenches his jaw and grabs me again. “Oh hell no,” he snaps. “You’re not going to be this stupid. I won’t let you. You’re seventeen, and you have nowhere to go. If you won’t think of me, think of your brother. Charles cares about you—”

  He’s not understanding me. This goodbye isn’t because I’m leaving; it’s because I’m already gone. I have to cut this bond, now. “I’m one of them,” I say, sharp now. Joshua jerks back. I don’t give him time to react. “I’m not human,” I say. “I’m not like you. You’re weak, and this would never work, not that I even want it to.”

  Joshua flinches as if I’ve slapped him and his expression is hurt, still angry. I try not to cringe. His jaw works some more, and he just stares at me for what seems like hours.

  Suddenly Joshua’s gaze narrows and he raises his brows in challenge. “Really?” he snaps back. “So you’re just a heartless bitch, right? That’s the story you’re sticking to? Okay then. Let me hold you while you remember everything we’ve been through, and then look me in the eye and tell me that again.”

  I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished. “It doesn’t matter, Joshua. I told you—”

  “Look, I don’t care about what you are, okay? I don’t care. It’s who you are that I fell in love with.” He stops, red spreading up his neck and face. He didn’t mean to say it, but it’s too late; the words are already out, floating in the air between us. He thinks he speaks the truth, but I know better.

  “I’m no one, Joshua. You can’t love me any more than you can love a statue.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I shake my head again. “I’ve tried. For years, I tried to pretend. I’ve hunted for the truth. I’ve endured more than one person should in a lifetime. But it’s all hopeless. I am nothing; I feel nothing.” You’re still pretending, that voice in my head says, snide. An image of Fear assaults me, his crinkled eyes, the way that coat constantly flapped against his boots. The tender way he ran his fingers down my spine in the woods that night, so long ago …

  “No. There’s always a solution,” Joshua says doggedly, filled with unshakable determination. “You should know that more than anyone. A month ago, I didn’t know that anything nonhuman, or from another world—any of it—existed. But it does. This incredible power, these creatures that aren’t bound by human rules or boundaries—”

  “It’s not as grand as you seem to think.”

  “—and no one knows about it. Just because we’re so shallow-minded that we can’t accept the idea there’s something more.”

  It’s easy to guess where his thoughts are heading. “Even if you’d known about the other plane years before now, you couldn’t have saved your mother,” I say gently. “One of the few rules my kind has is not to interfere in the lives of mortals, other than to perform our purpose.”

  “You interfered,” he counters.

  He knows I’m rejecting him. He sees right through the lies. There’s nothing I can do to ease his pain. “I disobeyed,” I say, taking a step back. “I was … sad and stupid. I still am. I shouldn’t be here. But I pay my dues; you saved my life, so I thought you might want an explanation for—”

  “An explanation isn’t what I want.”

  “I can’t give you what you want.” I’m blunt now. Even if it means hurting him further, I have to get it all out of his head. Me, his feelings, any shred of hope. “If it comforts you, I would feel sorry if I could.”

  “Shut up, Elizabeth,” he says, breathing heavily. He takes two quick steps and he’s suddenly there, too close and too demanding. He grasps my shoulders, so impassioned that he doesn’t realize his fingers are biting into me. The hurt boy is gone, leaving a heated man in his place. I study this new creature, his blazing green eyes, that ridiculous long hair.

  “Joshua—”

  “You feel,” he tells me through his teeth. “I know you do. You cried at Maggie’s funeral. You were afraid when that man attacked you in the parking lot that night. You painted that mural … for what? Because everyone else expected you to? No. Because you wanted to.”

  I’m shaking my head, but he’ll have none of it. Making a sound of frustration deep in his throat, Joshua pulls me against him. Before I can react, he’s pressing his lips to mine for the first time. He’s a little clumsy, uncertain. But then his warm hands slide from my shoulders to my waist, cupping the small of my back, and he relaxes. I close my eyes, instinctively kissing him back.

  Even irate, Joshua is infinitely tender, holding me so close I find it hard to breathe. Thinking to shove him away, I flatten my palms to his chest. Unrelenting, he pushes me against the wall and presses closer. My mouth opens to his, and our kiss deepens. He tastes a little like the sweet corn he must have had for supper. His arms are stronger than I’d realized, refusing me escape, challenging. Wishing everything was this simple, I keep kissing him, but somehow, someway, someone else slips into my thoughts. Someone with an infuriating smirk and silky white hair …

  When Joshua pulls back, I’m unprepared. A small gasp slips out, and at the sound Joshua grins, a slow, warm grin. “Elizabeth,” he says. “Don’t you get it? I’m not playing games. I don’t expect anything. I love you.”

  The simple words spark something inside me. I’ve heard them before, but it’s different this time. I freeze in his arms, carefully analyzing the strange sensation deep inside me.

  “You … ” I take a breath, struggling to regain my analytical way of thinking. Joshua won’t let me; he kisses me again, catching me by surprise.

  “Yes, I love you,” he says. His breathing is more ragged than mine. The Emotion herself shimmers into existence, touching his cheek before leaving us alone again.

  I swallow. I can’t say the words back. Because I yearn to say them to someone else. The realization isn’t a blow—it’s been waiting, just beneath the surface. And it means more pain for Joshua, more guilt for myself. No one can have their happy endings.

  “You don’t even know my real name,” is all I mumble to Joshua in response.

  He presses his forehead against mine, inhaling my scent, seeming to savor it. “Then tell me.”

  I hesitate for just an instant before whispering, “Rebecca. Rebecca James.”

  “Rebecca. It’s a beautiful name.”

  “Thank you.” I allow his touch, ignoring the instinct to pull away. This is the last time he’ll ever hold me like this, and I stay to give him memories of his
own.

  Joshua and I stand there for a few minutes—minutes that feel like peaceful years—just two people in a barn, alone, together, separate and apart, yet one. A human and … something nonhuman. Love and nothing. Love and everything.

  A noise nearby. I lift my head. I should pull away. I should leave. But I don’t.

  The boy in my arms notes the alert movement. He rubs a thumb across my lower lip, smiling. Then, softly, softly, Joshua says the words: “Just you and me, Rebecca.”

  There’s an instant of silence, and I can feel the illusion trembling. Then there’s the sound of thunder all around me, something breaking into a million pieces.

  Whoosh.

  The wall collapses.

  Pain. Pain. Pain.

  I remember. I remember it all, this time. And with the remembering comes the rush, the waterfall, the shrieking earthquake of feeling. Joshua disappears as the world crumbles. Emotions surround me, murmuring in wonder, touching me everywhere. I fight them, making sounds that don’t even sound human. Their faces crowd in, bright and dark, hideous and beautiful. As their skin makes contact, my eyes roll back in my head, the room around me fading into fuzzy shadows. I want to laugh, I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to pound my fists, I want to tear my hair out, I want to throw up my arms and dance and dance until I’m too dizzy to dance anymore and fall to the ground.

  And in the midst of it all, the memory of one face presses in, filling every corner of my being. Just you and me, Rebecca.

  Elizabeth is gone. I am completely Rebecca James once again. And I know what I am. Daughter, sister, lover … Element. I’m a hybrid. A half-blood. Haven’t you noticed that people are drawn to you? I know why now. And I know why Nightmare wanted to find my father. Because my father’s blood is the most precious, the greatest addiction, the highest power, the ultimate nectar. Blood that runs through my veins, making me only half human.